Friday, April 30, 2010

Well we didn't see any tornadoes tonight, but not for the lack of trying... We were all over the supercell just east of Little Rock, that eventually went north of Lonoke, AR... It was a beast of a supercell, but precip developing out in front of the storm cut the inflow off just as it was approaching Lonoke... This supercell did produce a tornado in South Bend, AR, which is about 8 miles WNW of Lonoke... We did as well as we could considering the HP nature/terrain/road network, but again precip developing in front of the supercell cut off the inflow...

Tomorrow looks to have a lot of potential... Like today if the clouds get out/stay out, then there is going to be several tornadoes... Add in the development of a surface low in south-central Arkansas, and things could get a little crazy... The 0z NAM is painting an area of 3,000-4,000 CAPE where the borders of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi come together.... The 0z GFS is painting an area of 2,000-2,500 CAPE in SE Arkansas... With sufficient low level shear, tornadoes are a good possibility... It's a little tough to do a thorough analysis on the road like this, but again the potential looks like it's there... I'll do some more analysis when we get to a hotel later tonight!

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Things are coming together IMO for a fairly decent outbreak of tornadoes across southern Missouri into the Arkansas Delta late Friday... I've just analyzed the 0z model data and things are starting to line up... This looks to be a more typical late afternoon/night time event across SE Missouri/NE Arkansas... We are having our banquet tomorrow for winning the national championship in forecasting, but as soon as that's done I'll be heading out with Tim Wallace and Michael Carter... We'll leave around 1pm and our target city right now is Jonesboro, AR... We should be there around 5pm which should get us there in plenty of time to chase... Again this looks to be more of a very late afternoon/overnight setup...

Some of the factors coming together:

* SE surface winds of 15 knots with dewpoints pushing 70 degrees...

* Great turning in the low levels combined with a strong low level jet increasing through the night up to 60 knots...

* Best dynamics north, best thermodynamics south... Liking the combo of that in the Arkansas Delta...

I do think there will be several tornadoes tomorrow so we'll try our best to get on them if they do occur... Saturday is staring to look very interesting as well... If a surface low develops in southern Arkansas like some of the models show, then look out! Again, this is NOT last Saturday's setup (something you see every few years in the south) but there is a legitimate threat for tornadoes as well on Saturday... I'll focus more on that tomorrow as Friday looks to be a decent event... Remember, one day at a time when it comes to storm chasing! I won't be shocked at all if the SPC went moderate 15% hatched tornado tomorrow through southern Missouri/Northern Arkansas... We'll see though?

Before I leave I wanted to put up a couple pictures my good friend Michael Haynes took in Yazoo City the day after the monster EF-4 struck... I think they pretty much speak for itself...

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tonight I really don't have a lot of time to talk about the upcoming possible severe weather in the Arkansas/Mississippi Deltas on Friday/Saturday... I have SO MUCH grading to get done tonight, so I can actually go chase this possible two day event... First, it's NOTHING like last Saturday's event, but there is still a lot of potential... Friday looks to be a decent severe weather event (including tornadoes) in the Arkansas Delta, and Saturday depends on where the surface low develops... It's very possible that the Arkansas and Mississippi Deltas will be the place to be both days... It's still hard to pinpoint details though and I'll have a much more thorough analysis tomorrow... The models are all over the place with the development of the surface low Saturday, even though the trend is north... That would be GOOD NEWS for Mississippi if that trends continues...

Before I leave I want to show an image I got from Joe Pennington... He overlaid the SPC day 1 outlook for 4/24/10 with the final storm reports... Honestly, it's absolutely AMAZING how well the SPC nailed this event! Again, both the SPC and the NWS should be commended on such great forecasting... There is no doubt in my mind that they saved many lives last Saturday!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Here is video from one of my chase partners and good friend Michael Carter... He was sitting in the back seat and got some really good video from the chase... My prayers continue to be with everyone affected by this monster tornado! Some of the stories I have been hearing is heart breaking... Also, the 149 miles looks to be the official length of this historic tornado! They found some breaks after it entered Oktibbeha County, even though the same meso produced more tornadoes as it continued to head north and east through Alabama...

Monday, April 26, 2010

Here is some video I shot mainly just after (some before) the massive 1.75 miles wide EF-4 tornado passed right in front of us as it was about to hit Yazoo City, MS... The track is up to 149 miles and "may" push 190 miles by the time it's all said and done! That's just crazy as it is already ranked right up there with some of the longest track tornadoes of all time! The 1925 Tri-State tornado holds the record for the longest continuous tornado track of 219 miles! We never saw the condensation funnel, just a black mass moving directly in front of us! It was completely rain wrapped and we had little to no visibility on highway 3 heading north towards Yazoo City... Again, we honestly didn't know it was the monster tornado until we hit the damage path about 30-60 secs after this black mass crossed the road... I think the video will pretty much speak for itself... I'll will warn you that there is one cuss word in the video...

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Before I go into the recap, I would really like to phrase the SPC and the NWS on an EXCELLENT job in yesterday's historic tornado outbreak! Without a doubt they saved many lives! They don't have an easy job at all and just like life in general they sometimes take criticism they deserve/they don't deserve... However, I would like to personally thank them for a great job yesterday! Hopefully they know their efforts don't go unrecognized... I also would like to thank Tim Wallace, Michael Carter, Jeff Perry, Ashley Sedorovich, and Michael Haynes for a great storm chase... Everyone worked well together even when things got a little crazy! I would also like to thank Justyn Jackson and Dr. Mike Brown for all the radar help they gave us... I don't think people realize all the effort and support it takes to have a successful storm chase so again I want to thank everyone involved...

We started the High Risk 30% hatched tornado day in Greenville, MS and got up around 5:30am after a few hours sleep... Immediately we noticed storms moving towards the river so we decided to head a little east towards Leland, MS... Even though it felt eerie outside with the amount of moisture in the air the storms just didn't look right to me... There was a lot of CIN in the area and after looking at visible satellite imagery around 7:30am we decide to head south towards clear skies... When we got to Hollandale, MS the skies were mostly clear, the sun was out, and I knew we were in the right spot!

We headed into the town and found a ziptrip to hang out at... They had an excellent breakfast selection and I would really like to thank the people working there for being so kind to us! At 8:30am my good friend Michael Haynes met up with us... Michael works for WABG-TV in Greenville, MS and has gone on several storm chases with me including Hurricane Ike! We kept watching storms to our west approach from Louisiana and noticed the CIN had started to erode fairly quickly... Also, CAPE jumped in the 2500 J/kg + range... The storms in Louisiana never really looked so great and we kept getting info that increased shower activity to our east would fire up and become the main show... So we decided to venture a little NE just to reevaluate the situation...

We got to Indianola, MS around 10:30am... We looked at some more data and decided that the storms in Louisiana were the main show (shower activity to the east was dying out quickly) and those storms in LA should really explode as they move away from the CIN and head into CAPE approaching 2500 j/kg +... Typically I would play closer to the better dynamics and the triple point, but this was a unique situation... Chasing in the Deep South is different than the Great Plains and I felt like being in the best thermodynamic environment was the right call with the amount of forcing/dynamics (more than sufficient) we already had in place... It would have really sucked to have made the correct forecast initially, only to change our minds and move the wrong way... Even though that unfortunately happens a lot in storm chasing... This time we stuck to our guns and decided we were going to head back south towards Yazoo City, MS...

Once we got to Yazoo City, we decided we needed to try to head a little more south... This is where things got crazy... We lost our internet service and our phone service was spotty at best... Unfortunately as we headed south of Yazoo City we were surrounded by trees on both sides as we made our way down highway 3... This is the tough/frustrating part about chasing in the south... In hind sight I really wish we would have stayed on Highway 61 because I know the viewing is very good out there... Who knew there was Delta National Forest/Panther Swamp National Wildlife Refuge to the west as it was the first time I have been on highway 3... Next time I'll know I guess... By the way the Mississippi Delta is some of the better chase country you will find in the US... It's not quite as good as a lot of the Great Plains but it's still excellent... We just got a little unlucky with our road selection plus Yazoo City pretty much marks the end of the Delta...

Images curtesy by Dr. Mike Brown, Mississippi State University...

Thankfully a few phone calls were able to get through from Justyn and Mike... But still there was a LOT of confusion... We went too far south and quickly realized we had to turn around and head back quickly towards Yazoo City... We had got reports of a large wedge tornado on the ground and we knew this was not a storm to mess with... The gate to gate shear was off the charts and we knew this was a monster, even with the limited info/data we could get... I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason which I think will show as I get into the next part of the story... Honestly it could have been bad...

Images courtesy of Jared Allen, NWS Jackson, MS...

As I was flying up highway 3 trying to get back into position, we noticed a large black mass directly in front of us... That was the mile wide + monster tornado, but to be honest, I had no idea that was the tornado! This is where everything happens for a reason comes into play... If we would have been a minute faster, is there any guarantee I wouldn't have drove straight into it, thinking it was just heavy rain associated with the RFD wrapping around the storm??? I've seen that black mass/cloud MANY TIMES in the Plains/South and it was just extremely heavy rain... I would like to think I would have noticed in time but honestly again I didn't know it was the monster tornado until we ran up on the damage about 30-60 secs later... That's a scary feeling when you think about it! And not to sound arrogant but I probably have more chasing experience in Mississippi than 99% of the chasers out there... Still I almost made a mistake that could have potentially cost us our lives... Thankfully God was looking out for us but still that's an uneasy feeling...

In the future I will never look at a black mass of clouds the same, I promise you that... Especially in the south when a lot of supercells are HP... Again I have chased all over Mississippi for over 9 years now, with more experience in this state than 99% of the chaser out there, and still to be honest I almost made a catastrophic mistake because of the lack of visibility! That's why you have to be SO CAREFUL if you chase through the Deep South! I know most probably would have left this part of the story out, but I always want to be honest so people can realistically see how dangerous chasing can be even if you are an experience chaser with over 9 years experience... Things happen, but the key is to learn from them so it doesn't happen twice!

As we hit the damage path we saw Jeff Piotrowski and Terry Schenk already trying to tie a tow line to the limbs of trees, so we could move enough branches out of the way to be able to continue chasing... Here is some video of that if you would like to see it! About half way in you will see all of us trying to pull tress and other debris out of the road... Later in the day we ran into them again and they told us we missed this black mass by about 30-60 secs... They described it as a black fog going across the road directly in front of them... They said is was spinning rapidly but like us they couldn't see a condensation funnel...

The damage was really bad... Huge tress snapped clean in half, power poles snapped clean in half, and even some trees were debarked to a point... I always try to edge on the side of caution when assessing damage ratings, but I thought it was probably EF-3 even though I told most people it was at least an EF-2 just to be on the safe side... The debarked trees makes me think it may have reached an EF-4 rating but I'll wait on the storm survey for that... Again I would guess around a high end EF-3... I would also like to say that if we would have seen any people in trouble or houses destroyed I would have IMMEDIATELY stopped and helped... I saw some sheds destroyed and some houses slightly damage but people were outside and everyone was ok... The damage path was at least a mile long if not closer to two because of the way the road snaked around... It wasn't a straight flat road at all... I've seen much worse damage before in hurricanes but as far as tornado chasing is concerned this is the worst damage I have seen with my own eyes right as the event occurred... Of course I've seen towns that have been unfortunately wiped of the map by a F5/EF-5 later on, but this again was the worst tornado damage I have seen "live"...

When we finally made it through the damage path I realized that I had a tire going flat quickly... I guess I ran over something to put a hole in it... At this point we made it to a small gas station basically in the middle of nowhere... They didn't have fix-a-flat and to make things worse I couldn't find the key to get my tire off... Nissan locks your tires by the way... Anyhow I thought we were stuck when a miracle happened... Remember we are in the middle of nowhere, when we noticed a older man that was fixing tires on the side of the gas station... I told him what happened and he said he would help! He found the hole, plugged it, filled it back up with air in about 5 minutes... I mean how lucky this that! I gave the guy $20 and we were back on the road... A special thanks goes out to that very kind man! He didn't have to help at all if didn't want too!

At this point we weren't going to catch the Yazoo tornado but we noticed more storms were firing south and west on a flanking line just east of the boundary... We decided to head back up towards Greenwood on Highway 49E and then cut back towards Starkville on highway 82 west... On the way I did two phone interviews for WAPT in Jackson, MS and WCBI in Columbus, MS... A couple of my friends/former students work there so I had no problem with helping them out! We made great time across 82 west and made it back to Starkville around 3:15pm... We just missed the first tornado that went west of Starkville which was the same storm that hit Yazoo... I'll wait for the storm survey to confirm this but that monster was a long tracked tornado from around Tallulah, LA to French Camp, MS... That's about 150 miles long, which would ranked right up there with some of the longest tornado tracks of all time! We'll see again if it had any damage breaks along the way...

The next supercell missed Starkville to the south... It had a nice wall cloud on it as we follow it to the intersection of alt 45 and highway 82... As I said earlier, supercell after supercell would fire off the flanking line of the previous storm... There was plenty of shear to support tornadoes, but by this time the CAPE had gone down a lot and there just wasn't enough energy to support updrafts capable of producing tornadoes, at least around the Oktibbeha, Winston, and Noxubee counties... We saw several beautiful supercells as we made our way down 45 south to Macon, MS, but we never saw any tornadoes... We could of continued into Alabama (Michael Haynes did and saw another nice supercell with a funnel about half way to the ground) but at that time I didn't feel like the environment in west alabama was the best for tornado development... We called it a day and decided to head back home!

Image courtesy of Michael Carter, Mississippi State University...

We got back around 6pm and went to go eat some mexican food... We left my house on Friday around noon and got back around 6pm Saturday! In total we drove just over 800 miles... I was VERY pleased with our forecasting!!! We nailed the best storm on Friday and we were all over the best environment on Saturday... Of course there is plenty of room for improvement but overall we did a great job in our analysis... As far as I know at this time 10 people died in the Yazoo storm and another 5 died in French Camp, MS storm which is located about 5 miles or so west of Ackerman, MS... Remember, both of these towns were in the path of the same monster long tracked tornado which possibly was on the ground for around 150 miles!

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone that was affected by these storms! As a chaser I'm fascinated by tornadoes, but I never want to see anybody get hurt or killed... My heart breaks for all those people and their families! Even with the excellent forecasts/warnings sometimes these things happen... All I can do as a chaser is try to help when I can... Anytime I'm out I always talk to the locals just to make sure they understand the severity of the situation... Of course I'm not trying to scare anyone, but you would be surprised at how many people over the years I have warned... Even with all the great forecasts by the local media, NWS, SPC, some people still had NO IDEA bad weather was coming their way! I always say even if you help one person, you are doing a great job!

On a side note, if you are the first responder to a tornado, than of course you need to stop the storm chase and help immediately... That is just the right thing to do as a human being! If you are only out for the shot/video then you should probably reevaluate your thinking! I'm not trying to judge anyone but it has to be about the people first! However, if you show up when emergency personal are there, then you need to stay out of the way unless they specifically ask for your help... As a meteorologist I'll I can do is forecast to the best of my ability and warn everyone I can... Whether it's trough twitter, facebook, or a blog I feel I have a responsibility to warn everyone I can... Why be blessed with knowledge that can help people and not even use it in a positive light?

Situations like yesterday is why you should always try to learn as much as you can about the weather to be the best meteorologist/storm chaser you can be! You never know when it will be YOUR time to help... This is something I always try to stress to my students! Whether you are a broadcast meteorologist, in the NWS, or a storm chaser, the more you prepare in life, the better you will be able to handle difficult situations like yesterday... And this is true in anything to do in life... The more you put in, the more you get out! If you make mistakes, like I almost did yesterday, try to learned from them so they don't happen again! Even the best meteorologist/storm chaser makes many mistakes over a career, but IMO what separates the good from the average is the ones that learn from it and try their absolute best not to let it happen again... Not trying to go on a soap box there, but I really feel this is important!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

I'll have a full chase summary up tomorrow from the 2/24/10 storm chase... We saw the black mass which was the Yazoo, MS tornado right in front of us... We didn't see the actual tornado though! Missed it by about 30-60 secs... Thank God, because I honestly didn't know that black mass was a nearly mile wide killer long track tornado... Of course I knew it was close but it's so hard to see HP supercells in the Deep South...

In the meantime, here is video from the Yazoo, MS long track tornado (from about Tallulah, LA to Ackerman, MS)... We were about 30-60 secs behind fellow storm chasers Jeff Piotrowski and Terry Schenk (who shot this video)... They were right in front of the black mass! About half way in you can see us help remove trees and other debris! Thanks to both Jeff and Terry for helping us get through the nearly mile long debris trail... Both are very nice/cool guys! My prayers go out to everyone affect by the Yazoo, MS tornado and all the other tornadoes which occurred during this historic outbreak!

Friday, April 23, 2010

I'm actually on my good friend Michael Carter's computer at a hotel in Greenville, MS... He just wrote a quick write up on today's chase so I'll just link his blog for everyone... I'm going to try to get a few hours sleep to get ready for tomorrow's long chase... The plan is to get on things around dawn and follow it all the way into Alabama... I'll put updates throughout the day on my twitter account! For all my follow chasers out tomorrow please stay safe! For everyone else across the Deep South please stay aware to the severe weather tomorrow! It could get pretty darn bad across MS/AL/TN...

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Things are starting to line up for a possible severe weather outbreak! I'm not going to lie, things look pretty bad for strong straight line winds, large hail, and potentially long lived strong tornadoes across the Deep South... At this point I'm still going to stay calm and relaxed! Too many times I've been burned getting into specifics 24-48 hours out... So much can still change (development of a MCS, stratus development, track/development of the low, timing of the low, etc, etc, etc...) so again I'll wait until tomorrow before I get into specifics! I will say this is the best setup I've seen for the Deep South (just shifted more south) since the Super Tuesday Outbreak on February 5th, 2008... That's saying a lot as it is, and everyone should keep an eye on this potentially dangerous situation! My good friend Michael Carter wrote a great blog post earlier today on the possible outbreak... I highly recommend everyone checking it out! Mike did a great job touching on the setup and the influences from teleconnections, synoptic scale factors, and mesoscale factors without the unnecessary hype!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The SPC has just put up a tornado watch box across most of the Texas panhandle... Like yesterday it's going to be about where the boundaries setup! One of my best friends, Justyn Jackson who works for the NWS in Amarillo, TX, actually saw a nice cone shaped tornado yesterday as a supercell exploded after crossing a differential heating boundary! Today looks to be a very similar setup... Currently there is a nice differential heating boundary setting up near Childress, TX and running just south of Amarillo through the Tulia to Canyon region... If I were chasing today that's where I would setup... There is a nice cumulus field moving from New Mexico into the Texas Panhandle and I would expect initiation fairly shortly... It almost looks like stuff is starting to go up now!

The dynamics are not very impressive at all today but at least there is enough deep layer shear (30-40 knots) to tilt the updraft in the vertical and keep storms from collapsing on top of itself... Again today is all about the mesoscale if you want to see a tornado! Hey it happened yesterday and I wouldn't be shocked at all if it happened again today! I think the SPC 5% area is going to be pretty good today... I know again personally that's where I would be sitting... Right on top of the differential heating boundary, waiting/ hoping for enough low-level helicity to be generated for tornado development! I can't wait to get out to the Great Plains! Watching all this gets me fired up and very excited/pumped to go chase!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I decided that I'm going to retire my old blog and start a new one... It will almost entirely be focused on forecasting, storm chasing, historical weather, and just interesting things/facts about the weather in general... If you know me you understand that I'm all about hurricanes... I do love all weather, but hurricanes are by far my favorite to study and chase! I'll always try to keep at least a 51% ratio towards hurricanes... Of course I'll still talk about all types of weather and I'll also have many storm chase recaps from the Great Plains... Again though, my #1 passion is hurricanes so if you love tropical weather then I think you will really enjoy this blog... For more info about me check out the "view my profile" section...

I'll be leaving for the Great Plains hopefully in about a week if everything goes as planned... I'm planning on spending a lot of time out there so hopefully I'll have plenty of opportunities to get on beautiful supercells and tornadoes... Of course I'll upload storm chase videos to my youtube account and this blog as well, so you can follow along as me and a few great friends travel across the plains... Right now as I speak I'm looking into buying my first HD camcorder! I think I found the one I want, a Canon Vixia HF S10... As my good friend Michael Carter suggested, I'll probably sleep on it, but I'm about 99% sure I'm going to buy this camera tomorrow... If you have any thoughts or ideas about this camera please let me know... It's in the price range I'm looking for and the reviews are excellent... It will be great to finally be able to shoot HD video while I storm chase major hurricanes, big tornadoes, and massive Nor'easters!

Severe Weather:I also have well over a hundred severe storm chasing days under my belt as I've been lucky enough to capture many tornadoes including a couple around/over a 1/2 mile wide... Some of the more famous tornadoes include: